


The Green Land of the First Mother

by DinosaurEyes



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies), Mad Max: Fury Road
Genre: Furiosa and Max are mostly bros, Furiosa builds a new green place, Gen, Introspection, Max comes by for cuddles, Rebuilding, Slice of Life, The stars (and Max) are constant, asexual furiosa, same kind of warnings that apply for Mad Max in that things are implied but never explicit, time lapse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-04-03 02:34:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4083391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DinosaurEyes/pseuds/DinosaurEyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Final Ride, Furiosa rebuilds the green place. Along the way, she also finds a home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Green Land of the First Mother

The stars are the same here as they were over the Citadel. 

It makes her want to scream - but she had done that already. Rent her pain and anger in a long, piercing howl that had been useless against the cold infinity ahead and above her. But useless doesn't lend itself to survival, so Furiosa had picked herself off of the sand and stepped back towards the Wives. It had been so hard to look at them, to read the failure crushing her spelled out across their stunned faces. 

The Green Place is gone. There is nothing left but salt. Furiosa knows this with a bitterness ingrained in her after 7000 days. She looked at the Vuvalini, Wives, Fool and the Warboy and simply said, "We'll camp here for the night"

It is night now, and Furiosa is staring up at the stars. In her youth - before she had been taken - they had not seemed of much importance to her. There was the occasional appreciation for their beauty, but the reality of the world around her had left little room for time like that, even as a child. After she had been taken, the stars had proved a comfort to her. That the Green Place was still out there. At nights she had charted her way home, an infinite amount of times. The stars were eternal and unchanging, and so would the Green Place. 

It is humiliating to think that she could still be such a fool. 

The stars are the same here as they were over the citadel. As they are over the wastelands that used to be her home. They are the same and they are unchanging and they offer nothing but cold mockery of her own stupidity. 

Behind her, Furiosa can hear the faint murmurs of camp. The two groups have fallen into each other, the Vuvalini welcoming her charges with relative grace. When she glances over her shoulder, she can see the Fool of a Bloodbag sitting in front of the war rig. He's absorbed in something on his lap. The rig rises like a monolith behind him, dark and final against the night. He does not return her gaze, although she can see by his studied movements that he has sensed her gaze. She turns away. There is an offer she knows she will make, a chance for him to come with them. He is quick and resourceful, and intelligent - a lucky combination, even though he seems more wild thing than anything else. She also knows that he will not take it. He carries the same look that she does, when the open road looms ahead of her. But she has a promise to fulfill, even though it is now different. The wives will remain free, for however long that period may be. 

The strap of her prosthetic is pinching at her shoulder and she rolls it absently, the metal grinding away at the sand caught within it. 

There are footsteps behind her and she tenses. 

"May I join you?" It is the Valkyrie. 

Furiosa nods. The other woman sinks down to join her on the sand. There is a pause, before she reaches out to grasp Furiosa's human hand. Furiosa's breath catches, but she does not pull away. It has been so long since human contact did not hurt, and this act of gentleness feels wrong in that it should have no place in this wasteland of the world. 

Furiosa does not pull her hand away, and she and her sister sit there under the stars. There is time enough for that. 

\-----

The Fool comes after them. 

\-----

 

After the Final Ride is over and finished with, Furiosa finds herself slumped into the front seat of Immortan Joe's car. The Wives and the last remaining Vuvalini - whose name she does not know - are behind her. Against all reason, she is still alive. The Fool - Max, his name is Max - is beside her, looking out at the masses of people crowded around the waterfall. There is triumph in her, whenever she looks at the white figure out front. 

Max gets out, and Furiosa follows him, ignoring the pull of her wound, stepping clumsily up to join him. The roar of the crowd grows to a frenzy, and the Warpups lift them up. 

Furiosa does not know when, but Max has slipped away into the crowd. She catches his eye, and he nods at her. She nods back. 

There is something like hope in her chest. 

 

\-----

 

There is no time after that. Furiosa strikes down the remainders of Immortan Joe's followers. It is a bloody two days of the survivors and the milk-mothers and the wretched tearing their way through those who have oppressed them for so long. The Warpups follow after - for what reason, she does not know. 

They cut out Immortan Joe from the citadel like the rot that it is. 

There are pressures from the outside as well. The remainders of the Warboys attempt to retake the citadel, which proves to be fruitless. Stragglers and outsiders also band together and attack, word of the new change in order spreading. 

There are almost no vehicles left in the Citadel, but Furiosa controls the water now. There is nothing to do but sit back and wait out the siege, those healthy and able to fight standing strong next to her. 

They defend the city, and the people grow stronger. Green begins to emerge from the earth, under the watchful eye of Dag. It is a trial-and-error process, but Furiosa and the Wives will hear nothing more about Mother's Milk. Eventually though, the earth beings to give back. Nothing but shoots at first, and then trees and crops. Even flowers, which are kept as a concession to Cheedo. The framework of a city comes into place, with Furiosa and the Wives watching over everything. 

There is much to do. 

Furiosa organizes parties - not to raid, but to trade. They establish fragile connections with neighboring towns, who are also pleased with the change in leadership. The Warpups begin to go without their skeletal face paint, and become pups. They race around the Citadel in packs, laughing and trying their best to be useful. The people begin to erect homes. A sense of fragile peace grows. 

Furiosa does not halt. Even now, in this new age where hope remains, there is not much place for gentleness. 

 

\-----

 

Nevertheless, Furiosa finds it hard to say no when the Wives come to her. There is no harm in holding them, awkward though she may be. Not much about Furiosa has been built for soothing, but she dredges up some small memory of her mother and tries her best. Always, the ghost of the Splendid Angharad hangs over them. Furiosa does not remember what it is like to live without the pain of losing something integral to her, but she does her best to understand. She was not chosen to be a wife - her mother had ensured that when she cut off Furiosa's arm, hoping the blood loss would kill her child. When Furiosa had survived, Immortan Joe had taken it as a sign of strength, and turned her into what would become Imperator. 

Furiosa does not know what it means to be a Wife, but she does understand the bond that comes through sisterhood. When she allows herself, she thinks of her mother, and the rest of her fallen sisters. She thinks often of the Valkyrie, and that small moment under the stars. She does not think of the Splendid Angharad, another woman that Furiosa has failed, and another name that she will earn redemption for. 

The Wives eschew the Vault, and have overtaken a small alcove that looks out over the stars. Furiosa joins them more times than not, and while it is awkward sometimes, most times it is pleasant. 

Capable has become just that, Capable. She takes over any task with ease, but shows particular aptitude with the Pups. More often than not, there is a small pack trailing behind her. She spends her days learning all she can about mechanics, and is planning a new way to properly irrigate the top of the fort. 

Cheedo, for all her fragility, takes to helping the sick. Immortan Joe had held onto records of healing in times gone by, and Cheedo pours over the records, teaching to a small group of women who help. 

The Dag plants and plants and plants. Her belly swells, and they do not speak of it. It will be dealt with when the time comes. 

Toast has become Furiosa's second in command. She is smart and cunning, and much better at people than Furiosa is. An Imperator had not needed charm or diplomacy. Toast becomes the official spokesperson to outsiders, ready with both gun and grin. 

They talk, always, of the future. 

 

\-----

 

Max comes back after three months. He rolls in and stops in front of the gates. Capable sees him coming and shrieks for the others. For a second Furiosa thinks the worst, running towards the sound, before seeing Capable throwing herself at a very surprised and very uncomfortable looking Max. 

Max brings gifts, little trinkets for the Wives. He is dirty and tired, but not wounded. He sits with them in their alcove, and listens to their stories. He does not say much. Furiosa watches him, notices the new scar around his face and the stillness of his body. 

He is more now than he was when they first met. There is less of the wildness in his eyes. She wonders what has happened to him in three months. If saving five innocent girls had had given him the small sense of redemption it has given her. 

Furiosa herself has changed. Imperator no longer. There are parts of her still stained in chrome and blood, and there is iron in her that will never go away, but she is not a thing anymore than the Wives are. 

They have taken to calling her the First Mother. 

 

\-----

 

Max joins her in bed that night. They do not sleep together. Furiosa has never felt the urge to invite another to join her. The years after her captivity have soured the idea, years of having no choice hardening her. Becoming Imperator burning the need from her. 

Max joins her, and they do not sleep together. Instead, she holds him down. It is a weight that reassures, holds both of them together. There is acknowledgment here, a togetherness that cannot be broken. They understand each other - the war still thrumming in their veins, the blood in their mouth. 

The two of them still looking for redemption. 

In the daytime she sends Max out on jobs. She knows him as she knows herself, that he needs something to do. Luckily, there is always something to do. He spends days working, more often than not fixing up the remainders of the vehicles they have left. At nights he joins her, and she holds him. Slowly, she is learning to be more than blood and pain. It is hard, and she will never be soft or kind in the way that those who are not warriors can be, but she can touch something without causing it pain. 

 

\------

 

Max leaves without saying goodbye, and Furiosa watches the dust plume around his receding motorbike. There is nothing to say. He will be back. 

Besides, there is always something to do. 

 

\-----

 

Word spreads about her, about the Green Land returned. Part of it is fueled by Max, who sends survivors her way. They arrive in groups, each talking about the silent warrior who had sent them on their way with maps marked with blood. He is becoming a myth, just as she is. 

Bloodbag and Imperator Furiosa. 

Mad Max and the First Mother. 

 

\-----

 

He returns, and leaves, and repeats. Every time he brings new trinkets for the girls, and sits and listens to their stories. He is good for Capable - understands the kind of loss that she has experienced, which even Furiosa cannot. How strange to think that something as useless as love could continue after the end of the world. 

Furiosa is glad of it, even if it makes her a fool. 

Every time, he visits her at night and they hold each other. 

There are months where she does not see him. Furiosa contemplates the open road - can hear it calling in her blood. She can taste the sand; feel the air stinging her cheeks. There had been a beauty in it. She had reveled in that taste of freedom, hard-won. 

There are days when she considers asking to join him, but she never does. There is too much to be done still, many battles still to fight. The name of the First Mother does not sit well with her. She has too much blood on her hands. There are nights where she more Imperator than anything else. The remaining Vuvalini understands, that the need for battle and the desire for the road thrum within her. But a warrior can protect just as well as she can destroy.

\-----

 

She remains, as unchanging as the stars, Furiosa. 

 

\------

 

Since that night with The Valkyrie, whenever Furiosa looks at the stars, she remembers the ones she has lost. But under the light of a full moon she can see the valley ahead. She rolls her prosthetic. There is little chance to spend out in the desert, so there isn't any sand trapped, but the strain on her neck remains the same. There are footsteps behind her, and she does not tense. 

He does not ask to join her, but sits beside her anyway. Max looks out over the Green place that she has clawed out of the desert, and nods at her. 

Capable, Cheedo, Dag and Toast come to join them. They are not Wives anymore, but women in their own right. They sit in silence, under the stars of this impossibly cruel world, her little family. 

The sun rises on the home that she has breathed into this wasteland, and Furiosa smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr - lovefitzgeralding.tumblr.com. Please come and talk to me about this amazing movie!! 
> 
> And always, thank you for reading.


End file.
